FED UP

[carolynm]

Okay, today was a rough one. I am so tired of the nasty side effects of these drugs. Neurontin: I can only get to 200 mg three times a day and at that I feel like a space-cadette. I don't even think it is helping the pain. The Tramadol also makes me foggy and droggy. I have 2 small children in my care every day and can't be feeling like this!!
Lyrica gave me terrible double vision
Tell me more about the intrathecal pain pump. The drugs then are not systemic, correct?

thanks for anyone's input

cari

[Karyn]

Hi Cari,
My heart goes out to you. I understand how you feel about the meds. They didn't work well (at all) for me, either. Because I was getting zero pain relief and more symptoms than I could handle, I eventualy stopped taking them all together. I guess I have to ask: Do your meds alleviate your pain at all? If so, how much? Are you driving while taking these meds?
Please understand - I am NOT anti-med. There are a sub-set of patients they just don't work for and I happen to be one of them. I'm very jealous of those who do get relief from meds.
Sending you lots of support and warm, gentle hugs,
Karyn

[Faith]

Have you ever tried the neurontin without the tramadol? My guess is the tramadol
may be making you feel like a space cadet more than the neurontin. Tramadol makes me horribly dizzy I can't hardly function on it.

[carolynm]

Thank you Faith & Karyn...

No, I have on certain days taken just the Neurontin in the mornings, trying to do without the Tramadol just to minimize meds, and it does not help with my pain. I think I"m going to ditch it.

xxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
cari

[Faith]

Research has shown that it usually takes at least 1800mg of Neurontin to help Neuropathic pain. I am not surprised 200mg alone does nothing. If it were me I would ditch the tramadol and try to up the neurontin, it has a lot less side effects. I started out with 600mg at night then went up to 300 in the am and 600 at night then 300 in am and afternoon then 600 am and evening and morning and 300 in afternoon. Then 800 at night, etc till I got to 2400. It took 4 months but nothing else has come close to helping for me. I know I just might be one of the lucky ones though. It probably helped my pain go down 2 points so not huge but it has kept me off narcotics and semi-functioning. Of course now post Botox flare it isn't doing much. If you up the neurontin do it at night so you are asleep for most side effects. Don't increase again for 2 weeks.

[calluna]

I agree that 600mg of gabapentin is not likely to be doing anything at all for your pain.

With regard to side effects of different drugs, it does vary from person to person - I had horrible problems with gabapentin (Neurontin) and although I did get up to 1800mg and keep it there for 2 weeks, it was not nice at all, I could not remember things, could not think straight and could not find words when I was talking. For me, the degree of pain relief was not worth it for the side effects.

On the other hand I can take tramadol with no problems - mind you, it does make a difference that it is the slow release sort. If I take the ordinary sort, then I feel spaced out. It never made the pain go away though, it just took it down a notch - I needed at least 300mg a day for that.

I agree that it is very much worth giving the gabapentin (Neurontin) a proper try, especially as you don't get on well with pregabalin(Lyrica). That means getting it up to 1800mg and keeping it there for a while. The only way I managed this was by taking the dose up slowly - steps of 100mg a week - dosing schedule here.

[helenlegs 11]

My experience is that I also needed the bigger dose of gabapentin to make any difference. Had the 'gross stupidity' effects too, especially initially.
I would like to add that if you do slowly titrate up (worth trying for a while as you are part way there?) DON'T just stop if the effects are not worth any pain relief. Take the dose down slowly too.
Personally tramadol simply has a constipating side effect for me, not 'daftness' (well no more than usual) to reiterate the point that everyone is different so drug taking has to be a monitored experiment to equate the dose to any effective pain relief vs side effect. A two week trail is a good idea as side effects can diminish over time.